Can portable numbers carry on?

FCC mandating unneeded service, wireless firms say

January 25, 2002|By Jon Van, Tribune staff reporter.

George Marton's cell phone number ends with the digits 2000. It's easy to remember and over the years the Chicago businessman has given that number to dozens of friends and associates who call him from all over the country.

But while he loves his cell number, Marton has grown to hate his cell phone service provider because of various billing snafus and service interruptions. Marton would change to another carrier in a minute if he could keep that lovely number.

"I'm really held hostage," said Marton. "For anyone who gives out his number the way I have, it's like you're dealing with a monopoly because they control your number, and if you leave them, you lose your number. It's not right."

For years, traditional land-line phone customers have been able to keep their phone numbers when they change carriers, and the Federal Communications Commission has ordered that wireless customers get the same opportunity.

By December, wireless carriers are supposed to install equipment to enable customers to keep their numbers when they switch to another service.

That's great news for customers like Marton, but it may not happen. Most of the large wireless carriers oppose providing the service--called number portability--and have asked the FCC to back off and let them keep the current system that ties cell phone numbers to specific carriers.

It's the third time wireless carriers have sought a delay in providing number portability to customers, but the first time they have asked to avoid having to ever provide it.

The FCC is expected to act on the industry's petition in about a month.

While the industry spends millions on equipment upgrades aimed at providing faster wireless Web connections, it balks at spending anything to enable customers to keep their numbers when they change carriers.

The cell phone firms believe if they can ignite customer enthusiasm for the wireless Web, they will tap into rich new revenue streams.

Because no moneymaking potential looms for providing number portability, wireless carriers see no point in it, critics say.

The wireless industry argues that number portability was imposed on regular wireline phones to promote competition in an era when phone monopolies were the rule.

It is an unneeded expense in the wireless world where there is so much competition that about one-third of cell phone customers already switch carriers each year, the industry contends.

But the idea that there is already "too much" competition sounds laughable to consumer advocates and state utility regulators who argue that the wireless industry is just reluctant to spend money on a service that will benefit customers but will not generate more revenue.

Churn not welcome

The movement of customers from one wireless carrier to another, called "churn," is a closely watched number. Even a slight increase from one month to the next can reflect poorly on an executive's job performance ratings, said Jeff Kohler, who has worked in the wireless industry and who recently sold his wireless service company, Reason Inc.

"The last thing these guys want to do is something that will raise their churn numbers," said Kohler.

Other countries already have wireless number portability, and customers very much like to have a phone number that is theirs, said Ken Hyers, a wireless analyst with Cahners In-Stat Group.

"In China, customers pay extra to get numbers that have lucky connotations or they get discounts to take numbers with unlucky connotations," he said. "But in this country, the carriers know portability would drive churn, so the only way we'll get it is for regulators to force them to give it to us."

If consumers want to use a wireless phone as a full-fledged replacement for wired service, they must have the same rights to own their number that are given to wired service, Hyers said.

The wireless industry disagrees.

Tom Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, said that while Congress mandated number portability for wireline phones, it did not specifically do so for wireless phones.

That was a decision of the FCC that would force the industry to spend money that would otherwise go for improving service, he said.

"Consumers aren't asking for this," Wheeler said. "It's just state regulators that want busywork. They want to get their teeth into the wireless industry. When 45 million customers a year change carriers now, I'd say that getting to keep your phone number is not a big barrier to competition."

Even if the FCC approves wireless number portability, the industry needs more time to implement it, said Brian Fontes, federal relations vice president of Cingular Wireless.

Number conservation

The industry is installing software and equipment to enable it to participate in phone number conservation measures, Fontes said, and to install portability technology at the same time is difficult.